Chapter 3 #2
Since when had she needed a hug from anyone to make herself feel better?
She made herself feel better. That was what she did.
She didn’t lean on people, not even her own daughter.
And she could imagine Abby’s reaction if her mother had suddenly hugged her.
She’d be shocked. And worried. Alexandra knew all too well how it felt to worry yourself sick about a parent and she didn’t want to burden her daughter with that.
They didn’t have a tactile relationship, but it was a good one, nonetheless.
Her greatest achievement, in her opinion, wasn’t the company she’d built, but the childhood she’d managed to give her daughter.
Stable. Secure. Nothing like her own chaotic and stressful childhood.
Abby was independent, and able to support herself without relying on anyone. She’d never find herself vulnerable.
True, Abby had never had a father around, but in Alexandra’s opinion that came with benefits.
She’d protected Abby from emotional and financial instability.
Her daughter had never lain awake at night crushed by responsibility, worrying about how she was going to pay the bills, how she was going to afford her mother’s care, how she was going to feed both of them.
Her daughter had never had to lie about her age in order to get a job she desperately needed.
Her daughter had never clung to the flapping edges of her father’s coat, frantic to stop him walking out of her life.
Shaken by memories she’d buried deep, Alexandra carried the tray outside, relieved she was good at hiding her emotions.
They settled themselves at the wrought iron table Alexandra had found on a trip to Italy.
She poured wine for both of them.
“Is everything all right?” Abby glanced at her quizzically. “You seem a little tense.”
So maybe she wasn’t as good at hiding her emotions as she’d thought.
“I have things on my mind, that’s all,” she said. “I’ve found a hotel in Maine I think might be a perfect addition to our collection. The position is excellent. I’m going to look at it next week.”
“Let me know how that goes.” Abby helped herself to chicken and salad. “Can I ask you something?”
Alexandra tightened her fingers on her glass. “Of course.”
“In that meeting today you spent ages studying one particular page of the report and I couldn’t figure out which one it was.”
“I don’t recall.” The lie came easily. “Why are you asking?”
“Because I’m trying to understand your decision not to sell when you’re sitting on such a generous offer.
I like to think I know exactly what you would do in any given situation, but not this time it seems.” Abby nibbled a piece of chicken.
“I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that The Alexandra, Cornwall was your first hotel. Or that it was left to you by my father when he died.” She said it hesitantly, aware that she was treading on sensitive territory.
It was something they rarely talked about, and with good reason.
Alexandra picked at her salad. “Have you ever known me to allow sentiment to influence a business decision?”
“Never.”
“The hotel is in a prime position. You won’t find anything better in that area.
It was the reason I knew I could make it successful all those years ago.
That hasn’t changed. Everything I have started with that hotel.
You’re going to find out exactly what is going on.
Flag anything that seems unusual to you.
” She shifted the conversation away from the past to the present.
“Unusual?”
“Anything out of the ordinary.”
“Like what?” Abby’s eyes narrowed. “You suspect something is going on? With the staff? Fraud or something?”
“No. But I’d like you to go in with open eyes and an open mind.”
“All right.” Abby nodded. “You never considered selling it? Not even in the beginning when things were hard?”
“I couldn’t afford to sell. I was nineteen and pregnant with you.
I had no support. I had to find a way. The hotel was in trouble and selling would have left me in more debt.
I knew I could capitalise on the position.
I knew I could turn it around.” She skilfully steered the conversation away from the past. Away from the personal.
“I’ve never been there, obviously, but it looks stunning. The coastline of North Cornwall reminds me a little of parts of Oregon.”
“And some of the beaches are more like the Caribbean, without the weather of course.” Alexandra speared a slice of seared chicken. She had no appetite, but not eating would draw attention. “But you’ll be able to judge for yourself and let me know.”
“Our usual Friday evenings, only over video conference?”
“Sounds good.”
“I’ll miss your cooking. This is delicious.” Abby finished her chicken and helped herself to more salad. “I’m not entirely comfortable joining the team undercover. Do you think it’s necessary?”
Alexandra knew she had to be careful how she answered that. “I think,” she said slowly, “there are occasions when the end justifies the means.”
“And this is one of those occasions?”
“How else are you going to get a true picture of what’s going on? If they know you’re part of the senior management team, they will edit what they tell you.”
It wasn’t the only reason of course, but it was the one she was prepared to share.
Abby put her fork down. “It’s true that people will open up and talk more freely to me if they don’t know of my connection to you. But how do I make that happen? What name do I use?”
“Your own.” She’d thought it through carefully. Weighed up the likelihood of anyone knowing. Remembering. She’d decided the chances of that were slim. “Abby is your middle name. If they search your name, I doubt they will find you.” She knew, because she’d checked.
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Abby picked up her wine. “No one calls me Madeleine except the doctor and dentist.”
“And you have a different surname.”
“True.” Abby leaned forward. “I know you changed your surname to Strong when you moved to Boston, and I understand why—you wanted a fresh start—but did you not think of changing mine too?”
“I was creating a new life for myself—a new identity in every sense. I wanted to leave the past behind. Alexandra Strong was the name I chose.” And when she’d felt out of her depth and doubted her abilities, which in the beginning had happened frequently, the name served as a reminder of the person she wanted to be.
Strong. “My mother was Madeleine Jones. I wanted you to keep that name. Your grandmother was a special person. Also, I always hoped and intended for you to work in the business, and I thought it might be easier if we had different names.”
“Given that everyone knows who I am anyway, it hasn’t made much difference.” Abby smiled. “But maybe it will now. It will certainly make it less likely that people will make a connection.”
“Exactly. And of course you won’t mention your relationship to me.”
Abby frowned. “But if they ask about my family?”
“Be vague. Deflect. I doubt they’ll ask.
In my experience people are usually more focused on themselves.
” She studied Abby’s troubled expression.
Her daughter was straightforward and honest, with a strong belief in fairness and justice.
She was also kind. “I can see you’re still uncomfortable with it. ”
Abby stared at her wine glass for a moment. Alexandra could almost feel her brain working as she tried to align the task ahead with her values.
“No.” She looked up and smiled. “I understand why it needs to be this way. I want to do this. I won’t let you down.”
Alexandra felt pressure in her chest.
“Your experience will be invaluable to them.”
Abby nodded. “And if they see me as one of them, one of the team, they’re more likely to talk to me.
If they know who I am then they won’t tell me anything.
The conversation will shut off the moment I walk into a room, the same way it does at—” She broke off, but Alexandra didn’t need her to complete the sentence.
“The same way it does at the moment. They still exclude you?”
Abby’s smile didn’t slip. “It’s more that they’re careful. And I understand.”
Alexandra felt an unusual urge to comfort her. To reassure her and tell her everything was going to be all right.
But she didn’t do that. She’d made a point of not being overly protective, even when she badly wanted to.
Handling life’s challenges created resilience.
She wanted her daughter to be resilient.
In her opinion being self-sufficient and having confidence in your ability to deal with whatever life threw at you was an important survival mechanism.
And a parent should give a child survival skills.
She’d been forced to develop her own and it had been a brutal journey.
In the end it was easier to handle loneliness than to lean on people and be disappointed.
“If they were a bit more open-minded they’d discover they could learn a great deal from you,” she said. “You did well today.”
Abby looked startled by the praise. “It was an interesting project. And the next part will be even more interesting. Thank you for choosing to send me to Cornwall.”
“I’m sending you because you’re the best person for the job.” In fact, she was the only person for the job. It was the perfect solution to a problem, but that was because the problem wasn’t entirely as it seemed.
Dusk fell over the pretty garden and Alexandra lit a couple of candles.
Abby finished her wine and put her glass down. “What was the hotel in Cornwall like when you first worked there?”
It was an innocent enough question. A simple question on the surface, but one that didn’t have a simple answer.
It wasn’t Abby’s fault that it was a question Alexandra would rather have not answered.
What was it like?
When she looked back now she saw only the darker elements but of course her relationship with the hotel was more complex than that.
It had been a lifesaver when she was desperate, a sanctuary when she’d needed to escape the misery and pressures of home as a child—and she had been little more than a child the first time she’d talked her way into a job there.
It was the place where she’d fallen in love for the first time, and the place that had confirmed to her what she’d always suspected—that people were often disappointing and that love, while occasionally romantic and wonderful, was more often brutal and heartbreaking.
It wasn’t something you wished for, it was something you survived.
Abby didn’t need to know any of that. Her own path through life had been much smoother. Alexandra had made sure of it.
She blew out the flame of the match she was still holding. “What was the hotel like? It was tired and run-down.” They’d had that in common, she thought. Both she and the hotel had been struggling to survive in a world where everything seemed to be against them.
It had been the scene of her greatest happiness, and also her greatest unhappiness.
Back then she’d had no interest in the hotel itself. Her desire for it to succeed had stemmed purely from a need to build a life for her daughter.
And she’d been angry. Furiously angry. That anger had fuelled her through the long days and nights she’d spent trying to rescue the place.
“But you knew you could turn it around. And you were so young. You didn’t have any experience of running a hotel.”
“Young, yes, but I’d been working there for years, and I was familiar with all the different areas of the hotel.” And it was surprising the skills you could find when you were desperate.
“Are you not interested in seeing it again yourself after all this time?” Abby toyed with her wine glass. “I don’t only mean the hotel, but also your old home. The place where you grew up.”
“I doubt it even still exists.” Her mouth was dry and she could barely speak. “It was a long time ago. It will have been knocked down and replaced by a new build.”
“You could come over for a visit while I’m there.”
A visit?
She’d left it all behind. Stepped out of her old life and into the new. She hadn’t looked back, and the only reason she was looking back now was because it was no longer possible to ignore it.
“My summer schedule is already planned.”
It was true, and she had no regrets about that. But even if it hadn’t been true, she would not be going back.
There was nothing left for her there and no part of her past that she wished to revisit.